


before the battle breaks

by Zofiecfield



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Feelings, Fluff, Masturbation, Pre-Relationship, Short One Shot, Smut, hot mess Jamie, hot mess dani
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:42:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29609595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zofiecfield/pseuds/Zofiecfield
Summary: Late one night, Jamie finds Dani alone in the kitchen at Bly, feelingrestless.
Relationships: Dani Clayton & Jamie, Dani Clayton/Jamie
Comments: 8
Kudos: 78





	before the battle breaks

Jamie comes back late every now and then, when the house is long since dark and the grounds have eased into the quiet of the hours between midnight and dawn. She drives slowly and parks far down the lane with headlights off, so as not to disturb the night.

She comes to tend to the moonflower and the other greens and the silent ones who flourish away from watchful eyes, to speak softly to them and coax them along, to be the lone witness to their brilliance.

She comes just to sit and think in the muted peace of it all, to let her thoughts sort themselves out as the petals open and the moonlight takes its compassionate toll on all the nighttime beasts, herself included.

On this particular night, however, as she trudges back from woods, the house is not dark, not as it should be. 

There is a single light on in the kitchen. Odd.

Something about it, this single prick of light bleeding into these hours, catches her off-guard and she finds her feet deviating from her intended path. They carry her towards the house and she’s holding her breath on instinct, the pulsing weight of the quiet, the question, the magic and possibility that hangs between one moment and the next in darkness like this.

Jamie slips in the back door, not far from the kitchen. Oiled by her own hands only last week, its hinges whisper her arrival to no one. Down the slim hall into the kitchen, she can see Dani in the dim light.

Dani, who paces the length of the kitchen, back and forth and back and forth, coursing with a restlessness that permeates the air and sets Jamie’s blood humming.

The kettle is on, the hush of the gas and the fire serving to set time to Dani’s bare footsteps as she makes another lap.

Jamie finds herself caught, trapped in this moment, too private to witness, too beautiful to turn away.

Dani runs a shaking hand through her hair once, then twice, but the motion doesn’t seem to soothe at all. Her feet still keep up their aching pace.

The kettle whistles and startles them both. 

Dani’s jolts, diving for the knob and flipping open the spout before the whole house rises. 

Her eyes skim past the teapot and the cup, laid out on the counter, but she makes no move to address them properly. Just regards them with a distant distraction.

Jamie finds her feet, awakened by the kettle and its roar. She takes a step down the hall, then another, then another, easing through the quiet, unsure of how to enter the moment without breaking it entirely, and it would be a terrible shame to break a moment like this.

Dani tugs through her hair once more, leans her belly against the sink and rests heavy on her forearms. Forehead pressed the cool metal of the faucet, a shudder running through her.

Jamie almost speaks, almost whispers Dani’s name. But the words die on her lips as Dani rights herself suddenly, a decision flickering across her face as her limbs _relent_ against the unseen forces that push and pull.

Dani turns and rests her back again the counter.

The world grinds to a halt as Dani slides one hand under the hem of her nightgown. The other, a palm, to her breast.

Jamie stills, every tick and pulse inside her pausing to listen, to watch, to witness _,_ as Dani’s eyes drop shut.

The silence of the kitchen screams with the slick slip of Dani’s fingers against skin that has been waiting for this all night. Something in the tense of her shoulders suggests waiting even longer than that, far longer. The cut of her neck and bow of her chin suggest a fight Dani has chosen, at last, to lose. 

Jamie should move, should leave, should be anywhere but here, she knows, but –

But.

Dani’s breath is too heavy already, coming in pants that don’t suffice for anything other than to breathe Jamie’s name. Over and over, just a single half step above the quiet, _Jamie_.

 _Jamie,_ who bites her tongue to hold back the litany of saints she’d like to conjure, to thank for this stolen moment, to beg for more and more and more.

As Dani begins to shiver, as her breath begins to catch and falter, slipping into a moan that sets Jamie’s fingers into fists, Jamie feels something in her begin to fracture.

The resolve that has kept her feet planted begins to crumble and every fiber of her, every nerve and every ticking pulse, sings the same thought.

Ten steps, maybe twelve. She could drop to her knees at Dani’s feet, let the cool of the floor ground her as she presses her forehead to Dani’s belly, as she whispers against the skin of her thighs to soothe and excite and worship. Dani’s fingers, slipping tight in her curls to answer the question that hangs unanswered, before the tumble, before Jamie’s tongue comes unleashed.

Jamie’s tongue could channel all that restlessness in Dani’s veins into something notably other. She could show Dani just how much this battle lost is truly a battle won. She could –

Jamie catches the last of the resolve as it slips from her, grasps it tightly between two fingers and sets her jaw. Backs down the hallway as her skin pleads for a different decision, as her palms itch and ache to go back, to soothe, to excite, to worship.

Knees and tongue and adoration will be heaven if they come. 

But the battle lost tonight, the battle won, the battle raging in Dani’s chest as she wrestles the beast that comes easily for some and with terrible claws for others, that battle is not the war. 

Knees and tongue and adoration will be heaven if Dani decides to seek them out, to surrender the fight, but only then and no sooner.

Jamie slips out the back door and into the darkness. Clicks the latch shut without a sound, just as Dani’s body gives in and breaks. _Jamie._

_Jamie._

Jamie carries that final breath home with her, tucks the sound of it into bed beside her, listens to it again and again and again until it is the tune her blood sings as it thrums through her. 

Fingertips make light work of her until she’s humming a complementary chorus of _Dani_ into the night. 

And then she waits, her palms holding a memory of skin she hasn’t yet touched. 

She waits.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!  
> [tumblr here](https://zofiecfield.tumblr.com/).


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